RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)

Hey, everyone …

It’s a holiday in the US (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), but instead of taking the day off we’re bringing you a full email / social media edition PLUS additional news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links here at our web edition (I’m not sure how many extras yet, as I’m writing this on Sunday). Enjoy!

A bit of crass commercialism:

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Have a great day!

Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily

Source: Washington Post

“The Trump administration is seeking to deport two men who provided accounts of the Jan. 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at a Texas detention camp that differed from the Department of Homeland Security’s description of the incident. Santos Jesus Flores and Antonio Ascon Frometa, two detainees at Camp East Montana who both have criminal convictions, said in phone interviews with The Washington Post this week that they witnessed Lunas Campos engaged in a struggle with guards before his death. Flores claimed he saw guards choking Lunas Campos to death. In a statement Thursday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Lunas Campos had tried to take his own life and guards were trying to save him.” (01/17/26)

https://archive.is/UgbhB

Source: Politico

“Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointed the finger at U.S. President Donald Trump for encouraging protests in the Middle Eastern country that he acknowledged have led to thousands of deaths. Khamenei held Trump responsible for the violence, according to Iranian state media, calling him guilty ‘for the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted on the Iranian nation.’ An Iranian official put the verified deaths at 5,000, according to a report by Reuters on Sunday. … The country is currently under an internet blackout, making it difficult to get information from inside Iran about the crackdown on widespread protests. The U.S.-based Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates 3,308 have died and said they have confirmed 24,000 arrests.” (01/18/26)

https://www.politico.eu/article/iran-khamenei-blames-protest-deaths-donald-trump

Source: NBC News

“Federal officials are investigating the partner of Renee Nicole Good to determine whether she may have impeded a federal officer moments before he [murdered] Good in Minneapolis, according to two people familiar with the investigation who spoke to NBC News. The federal investigation into the [murder] by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross is focusing more on Becca Good, including what officials said were her possible ties to activist groups, and less on Ross’[s] actions when he fired into Renee Good’s vehicle during an immigration operation last week, the people said. … The Justice Department is also investigating Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey under the theory they conspired to impede federal immigration agents through their public statements, according to a senior law enforcement official and person familiar with the matter.” (01/17/26)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/federal-officials-investigating-renee-goods-partner-rcna254038

Source: BBC News [UK state media]

“Independent restaurants have accused global corporations of being ‘sneaky’ and ‘a killer’ to family businesses by masquerading as indies on delivery apps. Chain restaurants including Pizza Hut, TGI Fridays, Frankie & Benny’s, Las Iguanas and Barburrito have brands on apps such as Deliveroo and Just Eat, giving them different names and the appearance of being small or independent businesses. … Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats all said virtual brands could be utilised by any business, including independents.” (01/18/26)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q53w1wzjjo

Source: United Press International

“Representatives of the European Union and South American nations signed a free trade agreement on Saturday, but it won’t be official until approved by the European Parliament. The free trade agreement would support trade between Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, collectively called ‘Mercosur,’ and E.U. member nations, but the E.U.’s parliamentarians could reject it. Mercosur is a Spanish acronym that is short for ‘Southern Common Market,’ and the European Parliament might take months to ratify the agreement, if it does at all, some European officials have warned.” (01/17/26)

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/01/17/latam-paraguay-trade-agreement/6571768684223/

Source: Fox News

“President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to ‘take out’ the Republican leader of the Indiana Senate after he resisted a new congressional map the president had championed. Trump wrote on Truth Social that Indiana Senate Majority Leader Rod Bray had ‘betrayed’ the Republican Party after his chamber voted down a new map last month that would have created two more right-leaning congressional districts in the state. The president said he would partner with David McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman who helped found two political groups, the Federalist Society and the Club for Growth, to target Bray. … In December, the Indiana Senate voted 31-19 against a new congressional map, with 21 Republicans joining 10 Democrats in voting against the measure. If approved, the districts of two Democratic representatives would have been eliminated.” (01/18/26)

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-vows-take-out-indiana-gop-leader-over-redistricting-fight

Source: ABC News

“U.S. forces have fully withdrawn from an air base in western Iraq in implementation of an agreement with the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials said Saturday. Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down a U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq by September 2025, with U.S. forces departing bases where they had been stationed. However, a small unit of U.S. military advisers and support personnel remained. … Now all U.S. personnel have departed.” (01/17/26)

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/iraqi-army-fully-takes-key-base-us-withdrawal-129314011

Source: Los Angeles Times

“The long-simmering fight between some of L.A.’s best-known billboard attorneys and Uber, one of their most frequent targets, is poised to spill out of the courtroom and onto the November ballot. The ride-share giant is gathering signatures for an initiative that, if passed by voters, would cap how much attorneys can earn in vehicle collision cases. … Currently, personal injury attorneys typically take 33% to 40% of a client’s payout. That is enough, they say, for them to earn a living and risk taking cases on a contingency fee basis — meaning, if they lose, they don’t get paid. Uber’s proposal would cap attorney fees for car crash cases at 25% and require extra costs — filing fees, depositions, experts — to be calculated before the fee split rather than coming out of the client’s portion.” (01/17/26)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-17/uber-personal-injury-lawsuits-california-law

Source: United Press International

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and others cannot use ‘crowd dispersal tools’ against nonviolent protesters while enforcing federal immigration laws, a federal judge ruled on Friday. U.S. District Court of Minnesota Judge Katherine Menendez said ICE officers cannot use tear gas, pepper spray and other commonly used devices to disperse protesters who are ‘engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity,’ The New York Times reported. … The lawsuit was filed three weeks before the [murder] of Renee Good, 37, in Minneapolis on Jan. 13, whom an ICE [thug] shot and killed … while she was trying to flee a pending [abduction] for obstructing ICE [thugs].” (01/17/26)

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/01/17/ice-minnesota-ruling/8691768678870/

Source: New York Post

“A beloved Florida pastry chef was tragically killed after getting caught in a bread-mixing machine at a grocery store where he worked, according to reports. Mordehay Grunberger, 71, was found dead at the South Florida Kosher Market in North Miami Beach early Friday morning following a freak accident with an industrial dough mixer, the North Miami Beach Police Department told multiple outlets. Authorities believe the longtime employee got lodged in the machine and do not suspect foul play.” (01/17/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/01/17/us-news/beloved-florida-pastry-chef-71-killed-in-freak-accident-with-bread-mixing-machine-i-lost-myself/

Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein

“Rather than a triumph of strength, collectivism is a symptom of a ‘primitive consciousness’ and is ultimately doomed to fail.” (01/17/26)

https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/from-inmost-to-outmost-consciousness

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“Does the US government, as described in the US Constitution, even exist? I say it doesn’t, and as evidence for my claim, I’m going to talk about recipes. That, you see, is what a constitution is: A recipe for government. It’s made of ingredients, instructions, and warnings. Ingredients for sugar cookies: 1 cup of butter, 2/3 cup of granulated sugar, and 2 cups of flour. Instructions: Mix the ingredients, form into individual cookies, bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Cool/rest for 15 minutes. Warnings: Don’t over-bake! Don’t skip the cooling time! If I use vinegar instead of butter, salt instead of sugar, and garlic powder instead of flour, bake it as a whole mass for an hour at 450 degrees, then immediately serve it, I made something. But I think you’ll agree that what I made was NOT a batch of sugar cookies. … A recipe is powerless to prevent incompetent or mischievous cooks from ruining the dish.” (01/17/26)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20275

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Joe Mullin

“Lawmakers in Washington are once again focusing on kids, screens, and mental health. But according to Congress, Big Tech is somehow both the problem and the solution. … At the center of the debate is a bill from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) called the Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA), which they say will protect children and ’empower parents.’ … But while the bill’s press release contains soothing language, KOSMA doesn’t actually give parents more control. Instead of respecting how most parents guide their kids towards healthy and educational content, KOSMA hands the control panel to Big Tech. That’s right—this bill would take power away from parents, and hand it over to the companies that lawmakers say are the problem.” (01/16/26)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech

Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a pamphlet that gave voice to the discontent of a nation struggling to free itself from a tyrannical ruler who believed power flowed from his own will rather than the consent of the governed. Paine’s warning was not theoretical. Two hundred and fifty years later, we find ourselves confronting the same dilemma — this time from inside the White House.” (01/16/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/16/what-tyranny-looks-like-now-no-crowns-no-coups-just-unchecked-power/

Source: Wired
by Parker Molloy

“After George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in 2020, right-wing media circulated his criminal history and toxicology report to argue he was no martyr. After Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, they fixated on his hoodie and his school suspension. With Good, gender and sexuality have replaced race, but it’s the same takeaway: They weren’t innocent enough to mourn.” (01/16/26)

https://archive.is/w2vF8

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by Christa Case Bryant, Kurt Shillinger, Kenny D’Evelyn, & Casey Fedde

“At a time when shifting corporate interests, market forces, and demographic trends are buffeting many news organizations, The Christian Science Monitor is different. We are published by a church. And that means our work is based on unshakable ideals that aren’t swayed by the latest algorithm. As we begin our 118th year of publication, our new leadership team is working to both articulate these ideals and enable the sort of journalism that best encapsulates our mission in today’s news ecosystem. To do this, we’ve been going back to our founding documents from 1908, when Mary Baker Eddy established The Christian Science Monitor. Our founder wrote that she established The Christian Science Monitor ‘to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent.’ What does that mean? Many of us over the years have grappled with this.” (01/16/25)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/From-the-Editors/2026/0116/A-newspaper-based-on-unshakable-ideals

Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Mike Maharrey

“In an early confrontation between the customs officials and John Hancock, the British hoped that flexing their muscles would teach the colonists a lesson and cow them into submission. They were wrong. Instead, the crackdown sparked a willingness to physically resist unconstitutional taxation and British assertions of ‘unlimited’ power.” (01/17/26)

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2026/01/17/writs-riots-and-redcoats-hancocks-spark-of-the-revolution/

Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer

“In the early 2000s, most Americans were still watching television on heavy cathode-ray tube sets. The average household TV was 25 inches, with a thick plastic frame, curved glass screen, and picture quality that now looks unwatchable. Flat screens existed but were luxury items, with plasma TVs starting at $2,000, rendering them aspirational tech rather than a mass-market option. Nowadays at Walmart, you can buy a 75-inch ultra-high-def ‘smart’ TV for under $500, with immersive sound, voice control, and other computerization that would’ve been science fiction in the TiVo days. This price flattening has occurred not just with televisions, but all consumer electronics, and has happened during the same period when more essential goods and services rose in price. It’s a great case study in what happens when industries are largely unregulated and exposed to competitive pressures, while others are heavily regulated or even socialized.” (01/17/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/17/why-televisions-have-become-so-cheap/

Source: Persuasion
by Sam Kahn

“Over the course of the past year, the ‘Heritage American’ movement — something I’d never come across before — moved out of the fringe and into the MAGA core, driving the rhetoric of Trump administration agencies. The ‘coming-out moment’ for Heritage Americanism may well have been JD Vance’s speech at the Claremont Institute in July 2025, in which he said: ‘America is not just an idea. We’re a particular place with a particular people and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.’ … Which ‘particular people?’ The answer may be supplied by the ‘Heritage American’ movement that centers itself on American Reformer Magazine and a group of intellectuals including C. Jay Engel, Auron MacIntyre, and Ben Crenshaw, who write lucidly, if not always with perfect logical consistency, about what they have in mind.” (01/16/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/its-not-my-heritage-that-makes-me

Source: New York Post
by Andres Oppenheimer

“On a nearly three-week visit to South America, during which I interviewed the presidents of Argentina and Peru, many friends asked me the same question: ‘Who is actually running Venezuela?’ My answer was, ‘The same crooks as before.’ President Donald Trump has claimed he’s running Venezuela following the US raid that captured former dictator Nicolás Maduro, and even posted a picture of himself on social media calling himself ‘Acting President of Venezuela.’ He also said he has talked extensively with former Maduro vice-president — now interim president — Delcy Rodriguez, describing her as a ‘terrific person’ who will presumably follow his commands. She is, indeed, under pressure from a US naval blockade that could cripple Venezuela’s vital oil exports.” (01/18/25)

https://nypost.com/2026/01/18/opinion/the-crooks-are-still-in-charge-of-venezuela-us-should-plot-a-road-map-to-freedom/

Source: Quillette
by Kieran Beville

“The quiet erosion of responsibility in an age of machine-generated prose.” (01/17/26)

https://quillette.com/2026/01/17/authorship-in-an-age-of-automation-ai-llms/

Source: Cato Institute
by Ian Vásquez

“Trump has also said that the U.S. would work toward a transition, though no timeline was specified, and that until then, it would work with the regime.” (01/16/26)

https://www.cato.org/commentary/venezuela-us-should-work-machado-transition

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“I support regime change in the United States. The real kind, not the ‘new face at the front desk every few years’ kind. I’m all for overthrowing tyrannical power structures, I just think we should start with the worst one. Why should I support the violent overthrow of the US empire’s enemies while the US empire itself remains standing? Why should I want to help the one power structure that’s terrorizing and destroying nations around the world with the goal of total planetary domination? Why should I facilitate the propaganda campaign of the latest imperial regime change operation by talking about the tyranny and oppressiveness of the Official Bad Guy of the Day when it will do nothing but help the empire expand its global hegemony?” (01/18/25)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/01/18/regime-change-the-us-empire/

Source: The UnPopulist
by Andy Craig

“There are few principles more essential to a liberal democracy than the idea that the law applies equally to everyone, and that abuses of public power — especially ones aimed at sabotaging democratic processes — carry real consequences. That principle is now under pressure, as Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has said he is considering commuting the sentence of former Mesa County clerk and recorder Tina Peters. … mercy is not dispensed in a vacuum. Clemency is not an abstract exercise in benevolence; it is a judgment call that must weigh compassion against accountability, and individual circumstances against societal consequences. In Peters’ case, those countervailing considerations weigh decisively against cutting short her well-earned sentence.” (01/17/26)

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/the-colorado-governor-should-reject

Source: Persuasion
by Damon Linker

“According to Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, there are currently 3,000 ICE officers swarming the city. That’s five times the total number of sworn officers who work on the city’s entire police force. They know they can act with impunity in inflicting violence on anyone they wish — undocumented immigrants, permanent residents, and American citizens. I remain deeply uncertain about what we can and should do about this dawning reality. But there is value in simply documenting it in its appalling details. We need to have our eyes wide open about this as we prepare for more — and worse.” (01/17/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/ice-is-imposing-autocracy-in-minnesota

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“Once a week, the Trump administration does something that would get an ordinary president impeached in sane times: cooking up a ridiculously pretextual criminal investigation to try to bully the Fed chairman into cutting interest rates leaps to mind, as does murdering scores of seafaring South Americans on similarly thin pretexts. Consider the fact — which would be unbelievable in normal times — that NATO countries are sending troops to Greenland because NATO — a U.S.-led alliance — is worried that the United States is about to carry out an act of war against Denmark. … Trump’s amorality and ruthlessness, and those of his underlings, are constrained by one thing and one thing alone, and it is not the noodly spines of such specimens as Mike Pence: It is their incompetence — their horrifying, hilarious incompetence.” (01/16/26)

https://archive.is/I3PDy

Source: TomDispatch
by Clarence Lusane

“Donald Trump may, of course, be the Republican candidate for president in 2028, the US Constitution notwithstanding. Although it is clearly written in the 22nd Amendment that ‘no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,’ it may well be a majority vote of the Supreme Court that determines whether that applies to Trump. In the past, that court has gotten around the Constitution without a single word of it being changed. Rather, its judges have let an innovative interpretation prevail. In 1896, for instance, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the court ignored the unambiguous language of the 14th Amendment that demanded ‘equal protection’ and so upheld racial segregation by creating the fiction of ‘separate but equal.’ It would take 58 years before that lie would be overturned.” (01/18/25)

https://tomdispatch.com/just-as-dangerous/

Source: Washington Post
by George F Will

“The 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast made the elephant the Republican Party’s symbol, but today the hamster would be more suitable for congressional Republicans. The phrase ‘hamster wheel’ is an American idiom for energy expended pointlessly. Now, however, some of those Republicans might have managed to reach a destination: exasperation with their role as ratifiers of presidential whims. Perhaps Donald Trump has at last gone too far for those legislators weary of going nowhere. He wants to prosecute Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, his pretext being cost overruns on the remodeling of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters. This is one of Trump’s especially pointless tantrums, given that Powell’s term as chair ends May 15. Trump has, however, clarified the debate about the Fed’s ‘independence.’ And he has perhaps finally provoked a Republican recoil against his ambitions to control everything, including interest rates.” (01/16/26)

https://archive.is/ArBGz

Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Winton Bates

“Just as I was reading the final chapters of William Easterly’s book, Violent Saviours: The West, the Rest, and Capitalism Without Consent, the United States government abducted the president of Venezuela to stand trial on drug charges in New York. I was pleased to see Nicolás Maduro facing justice, even if for the wrong reasons, but at the time of writing it remains to be seen whether the U.S. actions will advance the economic and personal freedom of Venezuelans. In the light of recent developments, Easterly’s conclusion seem to me to be excessively optimistic.” (01/17/26)

https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/01/what-was-wrong-with-washington-consensus.html

Source: EconLog
by David Hebert

“Economists extol the importance of competition in markets for driving prices down and quality up. But what is ‘competition’ and how does it actually work? To non-economists, the word conjures the idea of something like a sporting contest, where there can be one winner while everyone else loses. But this comparison fails on at least two dimensions.” (01/16/26)

https://www.econlib.org/econlog/what-is-competition

Source: The Bulwark
by Catherine Rampell

“Someone alert the Norwegian Nobel Committee: Against the odds, Donald Trump has succeeded in peacefully uniting the world. Unfortunately, the world has been united against us. This Pax (Ex) Americana era was illustrated Friday, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wrapped up a trip to China. This wasn’t just any old visit, either: It marked the first time a Canadian PM had been to the world’s second-largest economy since 2017 — and based on the glamorous video Carney’s team released, it was a smashing success for Beijing.” (01/17/26)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-making-china-great-again-trade-adversaries

Source: spiked
by Étienne Vérité

“The Pahlavi dynasty laid the groundwork for the authoritarian rule that Iranians are rising up against.” (01/16/26)

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/01/16/neither-the-ayatollah-nor-the-shah/

Source: Fox News
by David Marcus

“In a chilling series of social media posts on Saturday night, Minnesota state senator and former Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh pledged to make the Cedar Riverside neighborhood of his city a ‘no-go zone for white supremacists.’ ‘No-go zone’ is a term popularized in Europe that refers to Muslim-majority neighborhoods where it is not safe for White people to go. The X posts began with Fateh and two other men standing before the iconic Cedar Riverside towers with the message, ‘Cedar Strong. White Supremacists aren’t welcome here. We protect our own.'” (01/18/25)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-sorry-omar-fateh-were-not-doing-somali-run-no-go-zones-minnesota

Source: The Daily Economy
by Corey A DeAngelis

“Adults siphon off taxpayer money earmarked for kids, and no one is held accountable. Teachers’ unions share the same dysfunctional incentives as headline-grabbing fraudsters in Minnesota.” (01/16/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-public-school-shell-game/

Source: The Intercept
by Alain Stephens

“Videos of agents falling down and dropping their guns feel beyond parody. But under-trained law enforcement officers are a real danger to the public.” (01/16/26)

https://theintercept.com/2026/01/16/ice-slips-raids-minnesota-videos/

Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut

“Based on the troubling goings-on in Minneapolis, it’s hard to describe former GOP Rep. Justin Amash’s post on X as hyperbolic: ‘They’re building a police state right before our eyes — which will ultimately be deployed against conservative Christians and gun owners and those who refuse the jab — and a lot of ‘Republicans’ with Gadsden flags in their bios are like, ‘Yeah, FAFO!’’ There’s no hope for anyone cheering, but ‘responsible’ conservatives have a rationale for defending these actions: It’s better than having Democrats in charge. Had, say, Kamala Harris won the presidency, she would have imposed socialistic policies, they say. That’s probably true, but have you noticed the latest policy plans from Donald Trump? His economic proposals echo the Democratic platform.” (01/16/26)

https://archive.is/jc9MB

Source: The Atlantic
by Will Gottsegen

“There was a moment this fall when it seemed like the public might actually get some answers — that the extent of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes might be exposed, and that his victims might see the accountability they’ve been waiting for. On November 19, President Trump reluctantly signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the Justice Department to publish a huge number of its unclassified files related to the late financier (and unrelated to ongoing investigations) within 30 days. But what actually arrived on December 19, the Friday before Christmas, was a relatively small (and sloppily redacted) tranche of files that raised far more questions than it answered. Nearly a month later, not a whole lot has changed.” (01/16/26)

https://archive.is/gONWF

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Kevin T Frazier

“President Donald Trump’s executive order on artificial intelligence invites analysis of a question so complex that it rarely gets asked: ‘What exactly do states have the authority to regulate?’ The current, somewhat trite answer is, ‘The residuary powers reserved under the Tenth Amendment.’ Omitting the legalese, that means that states can do whatever the federal government cannot. States have the power to look out for the health, safety, and welfare of their residents. Thus, for instance, they have the power to address local concerns through zoning laws, professional certifications via licensing regimes, and ensure public safety through law enforcement. These authorities make up what’s often referred to as a state’s ‘police powers.’ While this generic reading of state power is not necessarily wrong, it’s imprecise.” (01/16/26)

https://fee.org/articles/artificial-intelligence-in-the-united-states/

Source: Common Dreams
by Paul Shannon

“The Trump peace scheme is not an imperfect plan that at least ends the genocide in Gaza. It is in fact a new plan to continue the genocide using a different strategy. It poses a mortal threat to the survival of Palestinians in Gaza. However this plan is not being implemented in isolation from the massive Israeli attack on Palestinians in the West Bank, but in conjunction with it. We are now witnessing, not merely a messy and complicated ceasefire in Gaza and stepped up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Rather, we are witnessing a coordinated 2-pronged attack to destroy the very idea of Palestine. As a result we need to move from targeting the Gaza genocide as separate from what’s being done in the rest of Palestine to a focus on both Palestinian self-determination and opposing ongoing efforts to erase the reality of Palestinians as a people.” (01/18/25)

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-peace-plan-genocide

Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

“Why do so many U.S. Democrats, like some Europeans, want to outlaw X? The current stage of the U.S. assault on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter takes the form of senatorial demands that X be removed from iOS and Android app stores. Why the enmity? Well, under the ownership of Elon Musk, X lets people say and write stuff that Democrats dislike.” (01/16/26)

https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/01/16/hatingx/

Source: Coyote Blog
by Warren Meyer

“On my first read I found this Substack post from Michael Magoon, ‘How a Generation of Young Women Moved Left after 2010 — And Why’ both fascinating and off-putting. Fascinating because he has crafted a pretty believable theory why Western women — the free-est, most liberated, most educated, and richest women with the most personal agency in the history of the planet — have been radicalized towards the Left and particularly to Marxism. … There are a lot of parts to his theory and he shares a good bit of data, but the theory boils down to certain psychological traits amplified via social media.” (01/16/26)

https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2026/01/marketing-marxism.html

Source: Unattended Baggage

“Struggling with senility and battling tri-polarism.” (01/17/26)

https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-325-struggling-with-senility

Source: Yascha Mounk

“Ian Bassin on How to Save American Democracy from Trump.” (01/17/26)

https://writing.yaschamounk.com/p/ian-bassin-on-how-to-save-american

Source: The Bulwark

“Tim Miller takes on the rough stretch for Trump as leaked internal polling shows his immigration tactics backfiring, ugly ICE footage sparks public backlash, and even the White House admits the optics are hurting them.” (01/16/26)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxF0GylOFr4

Source: Libertarian Institute

“Matt Wolfson: Israeli Connection to Maduro Kidnapping/ Will Zionists Get Their War With Iran?” (01/16/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/guest-matt-wolfson-israeli-connection-to-maduro-kidnapping-will-zionists-get-their-war-with-iran/

Source: Serious Trouble

“You Are Not Jay Powell.” (01/16/26)

https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/you-are-not-jay-powell

Source: The Tom Woods Show

“Scott Horton on Iran Regime Change Propaganda.” (01/16/26)

https://tomwoods.com/ep-2727-scott-horton-on-iran-regime-change-propaganda/

Source: Free Talk Live

“Why did Trump throw a Mar-a-Lago Furry party? :: NH Exit’s new bill hearing :: Blind spots in how the government has propagandized us:: Ratspeed reads a furry poem :: Trump the uncontrollable homunculus? :: Trump vs Jerome Powell just WWE? :: What disappointed democrats about Obama’s actions? :: Why They want us to be miserable :: What do the native Greenlanders actually want? :: Pontificating about life is what makes us libertarians :: 2026-01-17 Hosts: Bonnie, Angelo, Riley O’Bill.” (01/17/26)

https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2026-01-17

Source: The New Republic

“Trump Press Sec Erupts in Fury at Media Over ICE as Polls Spiral Again.” (01/16/26)

https://newrepublic.com/article/205364/trump-press-sec-erupts-fury-media-ice-polls-spiral